Your Orange Lipstick
by jane.cartier
Summary: dan/blair and some Chuck in the beginning. Continuation of the little scene with Chuck, Dan, and Blair at the Empire at the end of episode 5x09. Ends a little oddly but it is mostly DB and has some CB stuff.


Ever since Serena had told her about Chuck stopping Dan from making a scene at her shower Blair had not been able to stop thinking about him. Her thoughts were moving so fast that she could no longer rationally keep up.

_Had Humphrey only crashed to come yell at her? _

_Why on earth was Chuck the one to stop him? _

_Was he really just trying to help her out? _

_He didn't seem to have any other scheme in play at the time. _

_What was last week about then? _

_Why did he kiss me when he knew that I was trying to entice him into doing something reprehensible so I could loath him for all of eternity? _

_Does he want me to loath him for all of eternity? _

_No, that can't be right. _

_Was he trying to maybe…? _

_Oh God…_

She had locked herself in Lily and Rufus' bathroom after Serena had left to go back to her penthouse. She almost began to hyperventilate as the thought came to her. Chuck was actually trying to be good. He was giving her what he thought she needed to move on and get over him and forgive Louis. She had to see him, she had to see him immediately. She was in such a hurry that she ripped the door open and almost ran out of the penthouse, as much as a pregnant woman could run.

((((((((((((((((((((((((((()))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Chuck's elevator dinged, she walked into his room at the Empire Hotel and was surprised to find that he was not alone. She felt like she might have been hallucinating but the sight that met her would be too odd even for a hallucination. Chuck was in middle of _tucking Dan in _on his gaudy orange sofa. Chuck seemed surprised to see Blair in his room but recovered quickly and proceeded to tell her that she shouldn't be there.

He was heartened when she told him she finally saw how good he was trying to be this entire time. He wanted so bad for her to see this side of him ever since he started working on it but always thought she never would because she needed to see him as the villain in her story in order to make it to her happy ending. Her realization made him simultaneously happy and stunned him as well. So much so that he went silent and for once he had no smart comeback or suggestive innuendo to make.

Blair finally seemed to start to feel a little shy under Chuck's steady and unwavering gaze and diverted her eyes to the figure lying on the couch. He looked pathetic. She had never seen Dan Humphrey drunk before. He never drank with her when they spent time together. Between them there was always tea, coffee, or sparkling water rather than scotch, wine, or vodka.

No, she was wrong, he had drank in front of her once. That night they... conducted their _social experiment gone wrong._ He had a half-full glass of scotch in his hand when she had found him at the bar to tell him that Gossip Girl had foiled their plan to reveal their friendship by reporting Lily's arrest. He had not seemed drunk at the time. But his off handed comment about opposites attracting followed by that confused look that belonged on Nate's handsome face suddenly made a lot more sense now. Dan was not an angry drunk, unlike someone else she knew, he was one of those people that let slip the inner workings of his mind while drunk. Well, at least now she knew if she needed to extract some information from Humphrey she could simply get him drunk and ask him. She filed this piece of information away for later use while another memory came to the forefront of her mind.

Unbidden, the memory of their first kiss replayed itself in her head. Suddenly she could feel very vividly the way his lips had felt against hers: slightly roughened by the weather but pliant and glued to hers. She also remembered now that he tasted a bit like scotch. She had remembered pulling back from the kiss abruptly, out of breath, and confused because she felt a little dizzy and punch drunk. She now stood in the middle of the Empire penthouse wondering whether one could get drunk off of another person. The memory made her blush all over, her ears were burning, and she suddenly felt overheated. She was thankful that Chuck lacked the ability to read people's minds. Because if he could, she would never be able to live this down. She avoided Chuck's gaze as she moved past him to reach Humphrey. She stood there a minute just looking at him sleeping.

The truth was that a drinking man had become unappealing to Blair ever since last spring when Chuck lost control with her while drunk and the realization that Dan was drunk at her shower made her uncomfortable and slightly nauseous. Even though he had not in any way made her feel frightened the way Chuck had, he had said some of the most hurtful things she heard from him in a while. She had been stunned in the moment, left speechless, and floundering to come up with a rational thought that did not involve her becoming teary eyed.

She couldn't believe him, he said he was mad at her, where he got the nerve she did not know. Come to think of it, it was probably the alcohol. How could he even ask her why she did not invite him to the party. Never mind the fact that she actually had not made the guest list, Serena had, but still. If she had uninvited him, couldn't he why she would do such a thing? She always thought he was intelligent person. He had gotten into Yale, same as her. But sometimes his complete lack of common sense shocked even her. How could it not have occurred to him that having the man who publically declared that he imagined having sex with her and her fiancé in the same room might be more than a slightly awkward situation?

She moved and sat beside him on the couch.

"God Chuck, how could you let him get so drunk?" she asked him, who, ironically, was now pouring himself a drink at the bar.

"Contrary to what you might think Blair, I cannot actually control the things Humphrey does. Least of all his alcohol intake. It's hardly my fault that the man has gone half-way through college and still cannot manage to hold his liquor."

She rolls her eyes at his response. He really did look pathetic and his awful hair made it even worse. She reached out and pulled one of the curls and let it go only to watch it bounce back into place. She turned to Chuck and said, "how mad do you think he would get if we cut his hair while he was sleeping?" She meant it in jest, unless of course he was game, in which case she was ready to grab the scissors and shear his curls right off.

He took a moment to reply but continued the joke. "Well, he would kill me but if we tell him it was your fault then he is likely to turn the other cheek," he said with a knowing smirk.

Blair smirked right back and replied, "go get a pair of scissors and I'll lop off his curls myself."

Chucks raised his glass in a toast to her evil genius until she continued, "and I'll blame it on you later. I think they call it killing two birds with one stone, no?" Chuck's smirk immediately fell and he said, "you wouldn't," daring her.

"I would," she said enjoying pushing his buttons until the figure on the couch spoke up unexpectedly.

"I heard that." Dan startled her as he spoke but she was not a bit ashamed at being caught plotting against his hair. He moved so that was now lying on his side rather than his stomach.

"I like my hair," he mumbled still slightly out of it. Blair reached out and put a hand on his shoulder and said his name. He finally came out of his alcohol and narcotic induced state and realized where he was and what was going on. He sat up slowly as if coming out of a coma and stared at Blair as if she were an apparition. He rubbed his eyes and just for good measure reached out a hand to touch Blair's shoulder to make sure he was not dreaming. They both sat there for a moment him with his hand on her shoulder and hers slipping down to his collar bone.

"I'm not dreaming am I?"

"Unfortunately, no," replied Blair. She waited a beat hoping he might say something but he seemed a little too mystified by the situation to say anything coherent.

"How could you Dan?"

He immediately groaned as if in pain and closed his eyes mumbling, "I'm not dreaming." She just sat there and waited for some sort of explanation.

"I'm sorry. I was miserable all day because you uninvited me to your shower, I drank a little too much, Chuck was a little too liberal handed with the narcotics, we watched Matrix, then I got the idea to be a man of action from Keanu and one thing led to another and suddenly I was in your elevator. I didn't exactly know what I was doing but I couldn't help myself. I'm really sorry Blair."

"Okay, I didn't really understand the logic of most of that. Frankly I do not know how one goes from watching Matrix to crashing bridal showers while drunk."

"It made sense at the time," he mumbled pathetically. He looked sincerely sorry, like he always did when he apologized to her and as always she couldn't help forgiving him when he did apologize. She looked away from him and focused down on the blanket that was covering him before she spoke next.

"Did you mean what you said." He took a moment to answer her.

"Blair, I was so drunk I can barely even remember what I said to you."

She looked at him. He was getting to be a better liar. She supposed that being related to Jenny Humphrey helped and spending time with her had allowed him to refine his technique. But unfortunately for him she had been lying longer than he had and could tell the difference between a lie and the truth.

"I don't believe you," she said looking up at him and calling his bluff.

"Can't you just punish me and put me out of misery?"

"I could, but I don't want to. I want you to answer my question. Is that really what you think? That I'm never there for you?"

"No!"

"You're lying!"

"Blair, you can't ask me a question, then call me a liar when you don't like the answer."

"I can when your answer is a lie!"

"I'm not lying. I never said that you're not there for me."

"But you implied it."

"You know, I don't think implications made under the influence of mind altering substances should be taken seriously. In fact they should be disregarded completely as they are actions bourn of impaired judgment."

"You're not going to talk your way out of this Humphrey. You think I'm a horrible friend, don't you?"

He scooted closer to her and nudged her chin up with his hand. "I don't think you're a horrible friend, I just missed you is all. And I chose the wrong time and the wrong place to have all that come spilling out."

She felt instantly better. She had been feeling awful ever since Chuck and Louis had guided Dan away after his little outburst. She had not known what to think at the time. It had been so long since she had seen him and was happy he was there until he decided to launch into a tirade about what a bad friend she apparently was. She knew that was what he thought, regardless of what he said now. She knew it was probably true on some level although she would rather choke on a macaroon and die than admit that to him. She was hurt as well. He had been…_mean_. She sounded like a petulant five-year-old to herself as the word came to mind. It seems like they both had become petulant five-year-olds tonight, which was nothing unusual for the two of them when they were together, but still. With him saying heartbreakingly innocent things like _I didn't write a __**bad word**__ about you_ and her thinking things like Dan was being _mean._ What had their vocabulary been reduced to? _Bad word? Mean? _Those were the words that kindergarteners used when telling on each other to grownups. They were not the words of two intelligent people that were connoisseurs of the finer things in life such as literature and art.

She did not believe him and Dan knew it. What he said was a lie and he knew that as well. But he had faced a long time ago that although he spent the better part of all his time since she left for the summer trying to convince himself that he was in fact not in love with Blair Waldorf, he could not deny that he hated seeing that look on her face. That look that reeled him in and got him to do things he would not normally do and say things he would not normally say in order to make her feel better. It was the same face of that girl in the hallway five years ago, and of the girl he first realized was in love with Chuck, and of the one whose hand he tried to hold behind the curtain at Chuck's party, and also that girl who looked miserable at Dorota's bridal shower after her and Chuck broke up. He just now realized how often Chuck had put that look on her face and why. Suddenly he felt sick. Sure, he and Chuck had recently realized that they were in the same boat concerning their feelings for Blair. But the idea that he could be lumped into the same group as Chuck for a reason other than that made him slightly ill. He did not want to be another person that put that look on her face. He was now feeling a little dizzy and like at the shower, did not really know what he was doing, just following instinct. He still had his hand on her shoulder and he leaned in closer to her until his forehead was resting heavily against hers. He was convinced she was going to back away but she remained still.

"I didn't mean it Blair, I'm sorry." It was a lie. The entire thing. He meant what he had said at the shower, every word. But he could no longer help himself. This is the person he had become. He had become the person that would do or say anything he needed to so that look would disappear off her beautiful face and it worked. The pained expression was melting away, her doe eyes were returning to a more reasonable size, and her bottom lip was no longer pouting. Although there was still a smidgen of uncertainty on her face.

"Really?" she asked him innocently. He immediately replied, "yes, I wouldn't lie to you." _Except that I am lying to you, _he tacked on in his brain. But she seemed to believe him. And then she said the most heartbreaking thing he had heard from her.

"I missed you Dan." _What was this girl doing to him?_

"I missed you too," he was still unsure this was actually happening and he felt more dizzy than ever now. He continued talking without really being sure of what he was saying.

"Blair, in the interest of not lying to you, can I tell you something else?"

"What?"

"Orange lipstick makes your lips look really odd, odd and juicy at the same time."

And with that Dan finally collapsed back on the sofa no longer able to keep conscious, Chuck stood snickering in the corner of the bar, and Blair gasped before turning bright red.

She was not sure whether she was blushing with embarrassment or anger. But she did know that she was never going to forgive him for this.

Except that she probably would…

**A/N: I know I should be working on chapters for my other dan/blair story but I had this floating around in my head and I needed to get it out. I was so annoyed that we didn't get to see a scene with some sort of follow up on Dan's little outburst at Blair's shower that I decided to write one of my own. I tried to make it so that it made sense if you try fitting it in between the rest of the episodes which is why it ended sort of oddly…Hope you enjoyed the tidbit though. **


End file.
